Box-Office Oracle: 'Hansel and Gretel' Should Coast to an Easy Win Against 'Parker' and 'Movie 43'

Current Streak:Zero weekends in a row.Threat Level to Streak Being Broken:Zero percent, finally!Reason:The tracking should save me this weekend, although I'm having a tough time figuring out who exactly is planning to see Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters seems to be crossing demographic lines, hitting the comedy, action, and fantasy horror genres. Even so, the three million folks who will buy a ticket this weekend are stronger than me, then again I'm seeing Parker and Movie 43 tonight, so I suppose we all have our own cross to bear.

The tracking is very positive for Hansel and Gretel, plus the money has to go somewhere, and I've already got the weekend take slipping 30 percent from Jan 18-20. The number should be in the 20's, and that hefty marketing budget should come into play for a strong Friday night. I award Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters$27 million.

On the holdovers, Mama should dip 59 percent. The market is kind to horror openings and then mean for the sophomore weekend. Broken City is another likely candidate for a fall, but anything under 50 percent is a win, so $4.5 million is the number.

Back to the new releases, Movie 43 is in better shape than Parker, mostly because the 37 name actors will bring in a few extra people. By my measurement, it's the largest ensemble cast ever assembled, and though stars have lost most of their box office luster, they still should have a little pull. Let's place Movie 43 at $10 million and Parker at $7.7 million as generic actioners are getting murdered this year.

Next weekend should be a Super Bowl debacle, but Zero Dark Thirty should have one more weekend in the sun. It's still underwater against that $40 million dollar production budget. Could the Producers Guild of America help Zero Dark Thirty out? Nah, probably not, because only the hardiest of film fans pay any attention to the PGAs, and those people have already seen the movie.

That's all for this weekend, offer up your calls for Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters,Movie 43, and Parker. We'll be reviewing all three on the podcast Friday, which should be a real treat (if you like hearing us chat about presumably horrible movies).

SIDE NOTE:Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We'll have the actual counts in Sunday's wrap-up article.

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